BLOGMAS DAY 5 – Christmas Shortbread Cookie Recipe

December 5, 2016

Now that its decemeber, we all have an excuse to just eat far too much and why not bake yourself some sweet treats with a festive twist. At this time of year most people go crazy for gingerbread but not me, Im really not keen on it at all. Christmas tree shaped shortbread cookies is an alternative way to do some festive baking but a little simpler. Now if you’ve been reading my blog, you’ll know my style is very simple so it kind of seems to run through many aspects of my life. This is probably one of the easiest recipes I have ever come across and I’m no good when it comes to baking, I can tell you that now.

So the first thing you’re going to have to do is gather all the ingredients and utensils . The good thing about this recipe is that you’ll most likely already have the ingredients in your cupboard so no need to go on a trip to the shop and buy out the whole of the baking section.

STEP 1 – WHAT WILL YOU NEED?

Firstly you need the ingredients to make the shortbread and that consists of…

– 1 CUP of all purpose flour (plain flour)

– 1/4 CUP of Sugar

– 1/4 TEASPOON of Salt

– 1/2 CUP of softened unsalted butter

You will also need…

– Mixing Bowl

– Rolling Pin

– Wisk

– Baking Tray

– Cookie Cutter

STEP 2 – PREPARE

Before you do anything, you need to pre heat the oven to 140 degrees Celsius so that its all ready for when you’ve finished making the shortbread…it doesn’t take very long so this is an important step. Then grab your baking tray and lightly butter the baking tray just so that the short bread cookies don’t stick to the tray.

Now what you’re going to want to do is add 1 CUP of flour, 1/4 CUP of sugar and 1/4 TEASPOON of salt into a bowl and mix it all together using a wisk.

Once it is all mixed together, you then need to add in your butter. Working out what half a cup of butter is isnt easy but what I did was get my 1/2 cup measure and put the butter inside of it and kinda guesstimate. It worked fine so thats the best advice I can give to you on that one. OR you could just google what 1/2 a cup is in grams which really would be a simple option but hey ho didn’t do that.

When adding the butter, It makes it easier if its already soft and if its in small cubes or broken up as it makes it easier to work with. Once the butter is in the bowl, all you need to do is rub the mixture with your fingers until it becomes like a dough crumble and then you just need to push it all together into a big dough ball.

STEP 3 – ROLL OUT DOUGH

This is where it gets a little bit more exciting. You now want to roll out the dough. It doesn’t make a lot and it kind of crumbles at the edges as you can see from the photos. So the best way to do it is to roll it to an even thickness, cut out a few cookies, gather it all back together, roll it out again and cut more. Thats how i did it and it worked. If you want to make more cookies than I have then just double the amount of ingredients. I chose to use a christmas tree cutter and the shape of it actually made it quite easy to get quite a few cookies out of the dough as it all slotted together well if that even makes sense.

STEP 4 – PLACE ON TRAY & SCORE

Once you have cut all your cookies out, pop them onto the buttered baking tray and score them as if it was a loaf of bread. I tried to make them look like christmas trees but scoring them as if they had tinsel on and it actually worked which I am pretty impressed with. You don’t have to do it like this, you could just score it with some random lines or whatever you fancy but this way just makes them look all cute and christmasy.

And you can guess what the final step is….bake them. Pop them in the over for about 45 minutes or until golden brown. I guesstimated a little bit but as long as they’ve been on for a good amount of time you’re good to go. They’re supposed to be a crumbly kind of biscuit anyway.

FINAL OUTCOME

Im actually really impressed with how they turned out and they tasted good too. A simple recipe which you can do on a wintery afternoon with your mum or sister or brother or dad or just by yourself if you fancy some cookies. I mean did this all buy myself and I loved it.

I hope this little recipe is of interest to some of you and gets you feeling festive.